


Stranger In A Strange Land

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2359508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian realises she can no longer carry on living a lie with Robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger In A Strange Land

Marian knows she should be happy. In the original timeline, she’s supposed to be dead. And since Robin doesn’t remember her as having escaped and had thought she really was dead for years, that must mean that Regina faked her death in the altered timeline. That sounded about right, Regina would never have wanted to lose face by allowing anyone to find out that her prisoner had disappeared into thin air.

Roland had been happy to see her at first, but now he’s shy around her. Marian supposes she can understand that. Considering the age he was when Marian was arrested, he can’t remember her that well. That much, she can accept. But what she struggles with every day is Roland’s closeness to that woman.

The day after she’d arrived, Roland had asked what time Regina was coming over to see them. Robin had tried to fob him off with something about “not today”, but Roland had persisted, saying “But she always comes over. Why doesn’t she want to see me?” and Marian had found herself being the one who had to defend that woman, saying she was sure it wasn’t about Roland at all and Regina wanted to see him very much, she just couldn’t that day. Roland had appeared to accept that answer, but Marian had then asked Robin if he could handle that one in the long term. She may have put Roland off for now, but he was just going to keep on asking. And she knows that if she’s the one who tells Roland that Regina can’t come and see him any more, then she’s the one who Roland is going to resent in the end.

Marian can understand that if Robin had believed her dead, over time he may have chosen to turn to someone else. But did it have to be the Evil Queen? Marian doesn’t know the full story of what happened between Regina and Snow (a lot of it had happened after her arrest, and whenever people have alluded to it since she’s been there, they’ve usually immediately shut up, saying it was a long time ago and Regina is trying to change now. Leroy had started telling her some of it once only to be interrupted by Robin, but he’d got far enough for her to have some idea), but she knows enough both from what Leroy let slip and what she knew about before her arrest to know that not only would she not want this woman as a stepmother for her child, but she would not want her anywhere near him. And Robin had been around in the Enchanted Forest the whole time the war between Regina and Snow was going on. Surely he must have known enough about it to feel the same way? She asked him about it once, but Robin just said something about how he, Little John and the others had kept to themselves at the time that was all happening and not really been drawn into it. “Plus, Snow’s forgiven her,” Robin had tried to argue. “Is it so hard for you to do the same?”

Yes, Marian had thought. When my son calls for her instead of me when he hurts himself, and when he’s shy of me but reaches out to her, and she is the reason we were separated for so many years, then yes, it is hard for me to forgive her.

And when she looks at Robin and wonders if he is really pleased that she is back, or whether a part of him wishes that Leia, or Emma, or whatever she’s really called, had just left her there to her fate, she finds it even harder to forgive Regina. Once, Marian asked her why she had saved her, and Leia/Emma had admitted that the guy with the hook had been worried that saving her might affect someone else’s life in the Forest, and that had been her way of resolving the issue. _But me being here is affecting people’s lives too,_ Marian had thought. _So you didn’t resolve anything either way. In fact, you may have created more problems than you resolved._

But she knows she can’t stay angry with Emma. Emma had no idea who she was, she hadn’t known what she was doing, she was genuinely trying to do the right thing. Marian’s angry at Regina, because having already taken everything else from Marian she’s now taken Robin too. Or might as well have – Robin may be with Marian now, but every time she looks at him she can see it in his eyes that he still has feelings for her. She knows that he feels guilty about the fact that he now has her back and yet there’s a part of him that, although he would never admit it, thinks somewhere deep down that things would have been easier if she had stayed dead.

The day Marian finds herself thinking the exact same thing is the day she realises she has to leave.

Belle comes round while Robin is out and helps her pack up all her things. They’ve developed quite a close friendship since Marian arrived in Storybrooke. Belle’s been able to help Marian with adapting to life in this land without magic, because she experienced something similar when the first curse had broken, she had been released from the prison where Regina had been holding her for the duration, and all of a sudden she had to adjust to life in this strange land. And now she’s been able to help Marian see how strong she really is, that she can survive on her own.

A part of her had been worried that Roland would say he didn’t want to come with her, that he wanted to live with Daddy and Regina instead. She’s still not happy about the fact that Regina will be a part of his life, but she also understands that Robin is his father, that he will still be playing an active role in Roland’s life while Regina plays her role in Robin’s. Plus Roland actually wants to see her, and Marian knows how he’ll end up feeling towards her if she blocks that, much as she wants to.

It isn’t going to be easy. But Marian knows it’s what she has to do.


End file.
